Image Credit: Davi RussoGood news for Blue Valentine! EW has confirmed that the MPAA has changed the gritty indie’s dreaded NC-17 rating to a much-friendlier R after Harvey Weinstein himself appeared at today’s appeal hearing.

“I am so appreciative that the MPAA was gracious enough to reconsider their rating of the film,” star Ryan Gosling said in a statement. “I can’t express how grateful I am to those in the media who stood up for the film and put their reputations on the line in using their voices to support something they believed in. This is a film that was created for the audience, to reflect how complex they are and to involve them in a dialogue that [director] Derek Cianfrance has been trying to engage them in for 12 years. We’re over the moon to have the opportunity to finally be able to share it with those for whom it was intended.”

When EW spoke to Weinstein last month, he said he had already assembled lawyers to appeal the rating, including Alan Friedman, who helped TWC win an R rating for Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and David Boies, who represented Al Gore in the 2000 Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore and teamed with former Solicitor General Theodore Olson this year to challenge California Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage.